ILP: Orientation to Library of Congress website (loc.gov)

Today (November 18, 2015) I attended a webinar that showed me how to properly use the Library of Congress's website and all of the amazing features that it has. The Library has many formats of primary sources ranging from photographs and videos to newspapers and maps. The part I found most interesting about the website is the education tab. Under this tab there are resources for students and teachers. I really liked the Teacher's Resources category. It shows teachers how to incorporate primary resources like those found in the Library of Congress in lessons for their students and even has some lesson plans posted. Due to technical difficulties, the webinar started about twenty minutes late but once it started it went pretty smoothly. I found the display screen to be a bit confusing. At first I could not hear what was being said in the webinar. There was a button that said "audio" but whenever I clicked it I was put under the impression that it would cause me to call into the webinar like you would call into a radio show and I definitely did not want to do that. After 3 or 4 minutes of having no idea what was being said in the webinar, I clicked the audio button again and followed the steps this time while finally allowed me to hear the webinar. Despite a few minor difficulties, I enjoyed the webinar and found it to be very helpful in navigating the website and taking advantage of all of the features offered.

• the Library of Congress has over 7,900 audio related sources digitized.
• view all digital collections under the discover tab
• a collection is all of the materials related to a subject such as Women's History
• featured items in a collection are shown at the top of the site
• the education tab offers many different resources for teachers and students
• Read.gov links you to the literacy website and America's Library has reading materials that are appropriate for younger children.
• The Everyday Mysteries feature located within the education tab answers fun and common science questions such as "Why do turkeys have light and dark meat?"
• the connect tab allows you to subscribe to their social media pages and blogs to learn about the most recent and significant materials added to the site
• search for information by audience (students, teachers, publishers, researchers)